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I’ve done numerous expert league drafts over
the last few weeks and have severalmore on
the slate from now until the start of the regular season.

The one trend I’ve found in those drafts is
that I can sit back and wait to take a quarterback until the middle
rounds. For example, I landed
Peyton Manning in the fourth round
of the NFL.com PPR mock draft,
Kurt Warner
in the sixth round of the NFL.mock standard mock draft and Tony Romo
in the sixth round of the Time Warner Cable Experts League draft.

Based on the ADPs (average draft positions) from NFL.com leagues, those
three picks were all absolute steals.

Manning (11.77), Warner (33.63) and Romo (36.94) are all being taken no
later than the start of the fourth round in a 12-team league.

Furthermore, Donovan McNabb
(39.02), Matt Ryan
(52.79), Matt Schaub
(55.00) and Jay Cutler
(58.91) are all coming off the board before the start of the sixth
round.

Unless you’re in a league that starts two quarterbacks, is based on
touchdowns alone or has a scoring system that is seriously skewed toward
the position, that is just too soon to be taking these signal-callers.

My preference has always been to wait on the position
until at least the fourth round. That allows me to take a combination of
three running backs and wide receivers. In most cases, the flow of the
draft allows me to wait until the fifth or even the sixth round (as
shown in drafts above) to take a quarterback.

I can see taking Drew Brees
and maybe Tom Brady
in the first round, but not Manning. The third round is also too soon to
take Warner, Romo or McNabb, and the fifth round is a little high to be
taking Ryan, Schaub and Cutler.

While I realize that these expert drafts are
different than what your drafts will look like in a lot of respects, I
think they’re still a good gauge of positional values. In the majority
of these leagues, runners dominate the first round, runners and wideouts
fill out the second and third rounds, and quarterbacks (outside of
Brees, Brady and Manning) come a few rounds later.

When I have my personal leagues with friends and
family (including my sister, Denise, who I can proudly say roots for the
Cowboys and loves fantasy football), I might see some different results.
In fact, I expect to see more quarterbacks come off the board in the
first three rounds than I’m used to in expert leagues.

Whatever your own personal stratgies might be, I
can’t express how important it is to watch the flow of the draft. If
good quarterbacks are still on the board after the first three rounds,
like in many expert leagues, I can sit back and wait to take a field
general until the middle stanzas.

If my fellow owners start a
huge run on quarterbacks in the second or third round, however, I’ll
have to decide to either join the run or beef up at running back or wide
receiver. Personally, I’d prefer to load up at other positions and take
two quarterbacks (McNabb and Ben
Roethlisberger, for example) in
the middle to late rounds that I can start each week based on the
matchups.

The two other trends I saw that I didn’t agree with
were at kicker and defense.

For some reason, Stephen Gostkowski
(96.31) is being drafted on average in the eighth round of a 12-team
league. Mason Crosby
(111.86) and Rob Bironas
(114.84) are coming off the board in the ninth round. Why take a kicker
this soon? There is never any reason to ever take one before the last
two rounds.

In fact, I almost never take a kicker until the final
round.

Finally, I was astounded to see that the Steelers
defense (59.11) was being taken on average in the fourth and fifth
rounds. I realize this is a solid unit, but sacks would have to be worth
about 10 points each for me to take a defense this soon. The Ravens
(81.67), Giants (82.82) and Vikings (85.72) were also coming off the
board in the first half of most 16-round drafts.

Again, unless there is a huge skew toward defensive
point rewards in your league’s scoring system, there’s just no reason to
take one until one of the final three rounds.